Problem-Solving Contracts in the UK excluding London

Problem Solving
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Problem-Solving skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Problem-Solving over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 3 7 15
Rank change year-on-year +4 +8 +3
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 2,393 2,435 2,314
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 18.75% 11.72% 9.61%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 20.73% 13.83% 10.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,474 1,441 1,416
10th Percentile £200 £200 £204
25th Percentile £358 £325 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.67% -2.50% +8.70%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £586
90th Percentile £638 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -0.05% -4.71% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 196 339 204
10th Percentile £14.20 £10.99 £13.29
25th Percentile £15.00 £13.00 £13.48
Median hourly rate £21.24 £15.00 £37.33
Median % change year-on-year +41.60% -59.82% +107.38%
75th Percentile £30.63 £30.56 £61.25
90th Percentile £64.75 £60.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £22.14 £17.50 £43.86
% change year-on-year +26.51% -60.10% +119.30%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK excluding London

Problem-Solving falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 11,543 17,602 21,544
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 90.42% 84.74% 89.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,249 10,520 14,947
10th Percentile £235 £250 £255
25th Percentile £375 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £483 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.50% - +5.26%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £662 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 825 2,048 1,307
10th Percentile £14.20 £12.33 £11.00
25th Percentile £17.30 £15.28 £16.00
Median hourly rate £27.50 £37.34 £36.00
Median % change year-on-year -26.35% +3.72% +80.00%
75th Percentile £64.50 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £72.98
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £35.65 £37.30
% change year-on-year -18.65% -4.42% +49.20%

Problem-Solving
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings citing Problem-Solving as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for Problem-Solving in the UK excluding London

Problem-Solving
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Problem-Solving in the UK excluding London.

Daily rate trend for Problem-Solving in the UK excluding London

Problem-Solving
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Problem-Solving in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Problem-Solving in the UK excluding London

Problem-Solving
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Problem-Solving in the UK excluding London.

Hourly rate trend for Problem-Solving in the UK excluding London

Problem-Solving
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Problem-Solving in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Problem-Solving in the UK excluding London

Problem-Solving
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Problem-Solving within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 1 May 2025. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
North of England +5 643 £490 -0.71% 1,675
South East +7 546 £500 +5.26% 2,031
North West +6 379 £490 -0.61% 932
Scotland +6 339 £457 -3.79% 339
Midlands +8 318 £445 -6.32% 1,198
West Midlands +7 243 £450 -10.63% 657
East of England +2 240 £450 -10.00% 685
South West +4 235 £500 - 730
Yorkshire +2 221 £475 - 556
East Midlands +1 73 £373 +6.43% 485
Wales +2 48 £331 -33.77% 170
Northern Ireland +2 46 £350 +3.70% 109
North East +2 39 £510 -11.30% 208
Channel Islands - 4 £425 - 1
Problem-Solving
UK

Problem-Solving
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 112 (4.68%) SharePoint
2 105 (4.39%) Confluence
3 59 (2.47%) Microsoft Exchange
4 24 (1.00%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.96%) Apache
6 15 (0.63%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 14 (0.59%) IIS
8 13 (0.54%) Apache Airflow
9 12 (0.50%) WebSphere
10 11 (0.46%) Skype for Business
11 8 (0.33%) IBM Domino
12 7 (0.29%) CMS
12 7 (0.29%) WebLogic
13 6 (0.25%) ArcGIS
14 5 (0.21%) Anypoint
14 5 (0.21%) CICS
14 5 (0.21%) Mattermost
14 5 (0.21%) Mule
14 5 (0.21%) Tomcat
15 4 (0.17%) Umbraco
Applications
1 166 (6.94%) Microsoft Excel
2 129 (5.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 126 (5.27%) Microsoft Office
4 36 (1.50%) MS Visio
5 18 (0.75%) Microsoft Project
6 10 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
7 6 (0.25%) Trello
8 3 (0.13%) Adobe Captivate
8 3 (0.13%) AutoCAD
8 3 (0.13%) InfoPath
8 3 (0.13%) Revit
9 2 (0.084%) Adobe XD
9 2 (0.084%) CANalyzer
9 2 (0.084%) Sketch
10 1 (0.042%) Acrobat
10 1 (0.042%) Chatbot
10 1 (0.042%) Fusion 360
10 1 (0.042%) QuarkXPress
10 1 (0.042%) Simulink
10 1 (0.042%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 55 (2.30%) SAP S/4HANA
2 38 (1.59%) Oracle EBS
3 22 (0.92%) Oracle EBS R12
4 15 (0.63%) Maximo
5 13 (0.54%) Oracle ASCP
5 13 (0.54%) Teamcenter
6 11 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
6 11 (0.46%) Remedy ITSM
7 9 (0.38%) SAP Oil and Gas
8 7 (0.29%) SAP CO
8 7 (0.29%) SAP FI
8 7 (0.29%) SAP FI/CO
8 7 (0.29%) SAP HR
9 6 (0.25%) SAP EWM
9 6 (0.25%) SAP Payroll
10 5 (0.21%) Infor LN
10 5 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
10 5 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
11 4 (0.17%) Oracle HRMS
11 4 (0.17%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 393 (16.42%) Azure
2 242 (10.11%) AWS
3 208 (8.69%) Microsoft 365
4 147 (6.14%) Power Platform
5 105 (4.39%) GCP
6 94 (3.93%) Entra ID
7 55 (2.30%) SaaS
8 52 (2.17%) Azure DevOps
9 49 (2.05%) PowerApps
10 43 (1.80%) Cloud Computing
11 40 (1.67%) Power Automate
11 40 (1.67%) Serverless
12 39 (1.63%) Amazon S3
13 38 (1.59%) GitHub
14 31 (1.30%) AWS Lambda
15 29 (1.21%) IaaS
16 28 (1.17%) Snowflake
17 27 (1.13%) Dynamics 365
18 24 (1.00%) OCI
18 24 (1.00%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 94 (3.93%) Firewall
2 89 (3.72%) VPN
3 75 (3.13%) Network Security
4 60 (2.51%) DNS
5 59 (2.47%) LAN
6 56 (2.34%) WAN
7 39 (1.63%) TCP/IP
7 39 (1.63%) Wi-Fi
8 34 (1.42%) DHCP
9 33 (1.38%) MPLS
10 32 (1.34%) SAN
11 29 (1.21%) Remote Desktop
12 28 (1.17%) BGP
13 27 (1.13%) Wireless
14 25 (1.04%) Ethernet
15 23 (0.96%) ATM
15 23 (0.96%) Internet
16 21 (0.88%) OSPF
17 20 (0.84%) LTE
17 20 (0.84%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 108 (4.51%) Power BI
2 79 (3.30%) SQL Server
3 68 (2.84%) MongoDB
4 62 (2.59%) Relational Database
5 55 (2.30%) Oracle Database
6 52 (2.17%) Data Warehouse
7 47 (1.96%) PostgreSQL
8 40 (1.67%) DB2
9 39 (1.63%) Tableau
10 38 (1.59%) NoSQL
11 32 (1.34%) MySQL
12 25 (1.04%) Big Data
13 23 (0.96%) Oracle Reports
14 20 (0.84%) Data Lake
14 20 (0.84%) Metadata
15 16 (0.67%) BigQuery
16 15 (0.63%) Hadoop
17 14 (0.59%) DynamoDB
18 13 (0.54%) Azure SQL Database
19 12 (0.50%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 180 (7.52%) JIRA
2 107 (4.47%) Git
3 79 (3.30%) Jenkins
4 46 (1.92%) GitLab
5 34 (1.42%) JUnit
6 32 (1.34%) Selenium
7 24 (1.00%) Bitbucket
8 20 (0.84%) Visual Studio
9 14 (0.59%) Cucumber
9 14 (0.59%) TestRail
10 10 (0.42%) REST Assured
11 9 (0.38%) JMeter
11 9 (0.38%) Maven
12 8 (0.33%) Postman
13 7 (0.29%) GoogleTest
13 7 (0.29%) Rational DOORS
14 6 (0.25%) LabVIEW
14 6 (0.25%) SonarQube
14 6 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
15 5 (0.21%) ERwin
General
1 1,430 (59.76%) Social Skills
2 893 (37.32%) Analytical Skills
3 450 (18.80%) Finance
4 187 (7.81%) Public Sector
5 142 (5.93%) Banking
6 109 (4.55%) Telecoms
7 91 (3.80%) Manufacturing
8 82 (3.43%) Legal
9 79 (3.30%) Presentation Skills
10 73 (3.05%) Organisational Skills
11 55 (2.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 50 (2.09%) Documentation Skills
13 43 (1.80%) Marketing
14 37 (1.55%) Influencing Skills
14 37 (1.55%) Investment Banking
14 37 (1.55%) Pharmaceutical
15 35 (1.46%) Retail
16 31 (1.30%) Front Office
17 27 (1.13%) Electronics
18 25 (1.04%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 337 (14.08%) Analyst
2 274 (11.45%) Developer
3 181 (7.56%) Architect
4 149 (6.23%) Senior
5 121 (5.06%) Lead
6 115 (4.81%) Support Engineer
7 107 (4.47%) Consultant
8 102 (4.26%) Business Analyst
9 84 (3.51%) Project Manager
10 77 (3.22%) Service Analyst
11 74 (3.09%) Data Engineer
12 71 (2.97%) Administrator
13 68 (2.84%) Java Developer
14 67 (2.80%) Solutions Architect
15 61 (2.55%) Service Desk Analyst
16 57 (2.38%) IT Support
17 53 (2.21%) Network Engineer
18 43 (1.80%) IT Engineer
18 43 (1.80%) Support Analyst
19 40 (1.67%) Desktop Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 65 (2.72%) Kafka
1 65 (2.72%) REST
2 62 (2.59%) React
3 57 (2.38%) HTML
4 56 (2.34%) CSS
4 56 (2.34%) RESTful
5 47 (1.96%) Spring
6 37 (1.55%) .NET
7 36 (1.50%) Web Services
8 35 (1.46%) JSON
9 34 (1.42%) AngularJS
9 34 (1.42%) Middleware
10 32 (1.34%) SOAP
11 26 (1.09%) JMS
12 22 (0.92%) Spring Boot
13 21 (0.88%) XML
14 19 (0.79%) Node.js
14 19 (0.79%) Oracle Fusion
15 15 (0.63%) PySpark
16 14 (0.59%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 124 (5.18%) Management Information System
2 100 (4.18%) Self-Motivation
3 72 (3.01%) Product Ownership
4 66 (2.76%) Data Centre
5 58 (2.42%) Data Protection Act
6 55 (2.30%) Cloud Native
6 55 (2.30%) Data Structures
7 45 (1.88%) Onboarding
8 41 (1.71%) Algorithms
9 40 (1.67%) Legacy Systems
10 34 (1.42%) Enterprise Software
11 32 (1.34%) Security Posture
12 31 (1.30%) Equities
13 29 (1.21%) CMDB
14 27 (1.13%) Analytical Mindset
15 26 (1.09%) Distributed Systems
15 26 (1.09%) iPhone
15 26 (1.09%) Replication
16 25 (1.04%) iPad
17 23 (0.96%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 367 (15.34%) Windows
2 219 (9.15%) Linux
3 97 (4.05%) Windows Server
4 73 (3.05%) Windows 10
5 58 (2.42%) Unix
6 27 (1.13%) Apple iOS
7 26 (1.09%) Android
8 25 (1.04%) Mac OS
9 23 (0.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 17 (0.71%) Windows Server 2016
11 13 (0.54%) zOS
12 12 (0.50%) Windows Server 2012
13 10 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
14 8 (0.33%) Embedded Linux
15 6 (0.25%) AIX
15 6 (0.25%) Windows Server 2008
15 6 (0.25%) Windows XP
16 5 (0.21%) Windows 8
16 5 (0.21%) Windows Server 2003
17 4 (0.17%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 570 (23.82%) Agile
2 273 (11.41%) Project Management
3 258 (10.78%) ITIL
3 258 (10.78%) Stakeholder Management
4 231 (9.65%) Customer Service
5 227 (9.49%) Decision-Making
6 225 (9.40%) Migration
7 224 (9.36%) Continuous Improvement
8 223 (9.32%) CI/CD
9 222 (9.28%) DevOps
10 168 (7.02%) Computer Science
11 156 (6.52%) Service Delivery
12 153 (6.39%) Collaborative Working
13 151 (6.31%) Change Management
14 146 (6.10%) Business Intelligence
15 142 (5.93%) Time Management
16 130 (5.43%) Scrum
17 129 (5.39%) Analytics
18 128 (5.35%) Process Improvement
19 127 (5.31%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 365 (15.25%) SQL
2 325 (13.58%) Python
3 173 (7.23%) Java
4 167 (6.98%) PowerShell
5 103 (4.30%) JavaScript
6 71 (2.97%) C#
7 65 (2.72%) Bash
8 56 (2.34%) PL/SQL
9 51 (2.13%) Shell Script
10 29 (1.21%) TypeScript
11 25 (1.04%) C++
11 25 (1.04%) Perl
12 23 (0.96%) Scala
13 20 (0.84%) PHP
14 16 (0.67%) Delphi
15 13 (0.54%) ABAP
15 13 (0.54%) C
16 12 (0.50%) Ruby
17 11 (0.46%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 10 (0.42%) Go
Qualifications
1 416 (17.38%) Security Cleared
2 321 (13.41%) Degree
3 314 (13.12%) SC Cleared
4 108 (4.51%) Computer Science Degree
5 103 (4.30%) Cisco Certification
6 100 (4.18%) Microsoft Certification
7 80 (3.34%) CCNP
8 72 (3.01%) DV Cleared
9 65 (2.72%) ITIL Certification
10 58 (2.42%) A+ Certification
11 45 (1.88%) CISSP
12 43 (1.80%) Master's Degree
13 42 (1.76%) BPSS Clearance
13 42 (1.76%) PMI Certification
14 38 (1.59%) Azure Certification
15 36 (1.50%) AWS Certification
16 34 (1.42%) PMP
17 29 (1.21%) CCNA
17 29 (1.21%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
18 28 (1.17%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 144 (6.02%) QA
2 83 (3.47%) Data Quality
3 63 (2.63%) SLA
4 57 (2.38%) GDPR
5 27 (1.13%) Accessibility
5 27 (1.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 26 (1.09%) PMO
7 21 (0.88%) Disclosure Scotland
7 21 (0.88%) NIST
8 19 (0.79%) PCI DSS
9 11 (0.46%) HIPAA
10 9 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 7 (0.29%) GRC
12 5 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials
12 5 (0.21%) NCSC
12 5 (0.21%) Software Quality Assurance
13 4 (0.17%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 4 (0.17%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 4 (0.17%) PMBOK
14 3 (0.13%) WCAG
System Software
1 240 (10.03%) Active Directory
2 103 (4.30%) Docker
3 82 (3.43%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.13%) vSphere
5 26 (1.09%) Virtual Machines
6 22 (0.92%) Hyper-V
7 17 (0.71%) VMware NSX
8 12 (0.50%) Virtual Servers
9 9 (0.38%) Oracle RAC
10 8 (0.33%) RACF
11 6 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
12 5 (0.21%) Firmware
13 4 (0.17%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 3 (0.13%) Time Sharing Option
14 3 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
15 2 (0.084%) Apache ZooKeeper
15 2 (0.084%) BitLocker
15 2 (0.084%) NFS
15 2 (0.084%) Veritas Cluster Server
16 1 (0.042%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 112 (4.68%) Kubernetes
2 94 (3.93%) Ansible
3 78 (3.26%) Terraform
4 67 (2.80%) Microsoft Intune
5 57 (2.38%) SCCM
6 31 (1.30%) Single Sign-On
7 25 (1.04%) Puppet
8 23 (0.96%) Oracle RMAN
9 22 (0.92%) vCenter Server
10 17 (0.71%) Jamf Pro
10 17 (0.71%) Progress Chef
11 15 (0.63%) Grafana
12 11 (0.46%) Kibana
12 11 (0.46%) NetBackup
12 11 (0.46%) Podman
13 10 (0.42%) FortiGate
13 10 (0.42%) Prometheus
14 9 (0.38%) SCOM
15 7 (0.29%) Failover Clustering
15 7 (0.29%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
Vendors
1 540 (22.57%) Microsoft
2 209 (8.73%) Oracle
3 144 (6.02%) SAP
4 143 (5.98%) ServiceNow
5 117 (4.89%) Cisco
6 99 (4.14%) VMware
7 80 (3.34%) Google
8 46 (1.92%) Juniper
9 43 (1.80%) Citrix
10 37 (1.55%) IBM
11 30 (1.25%) Sybase
12 29 (1.21%) Dell
12 29 (1.21%) Red Hat
13 26 (1.09%) Databricks
13 26 (1.09%) Splunk
14 24 (1.00%) Apple
15 23 (0.96%) HP
16 22 (0.92%) Nokia
16 22 (0.92%) Palo Alto
17 21 (0.88%) F5